I’m in Vail this weekend for a friend’s bachelorette. I got to the Atlanta airport yesterday at 8 a.m. and did not arrive in Vail until 7:30 p.m. mountain time. For you math whizzes, that’s a total of 13.5 hours. Thank you to AirTran/Southwest for overselling the flight to Denver when there wasn’t another one for 12 hours, then making up for it by rerouting me through Vegas with a two-hour layover (yes, I got married) and giving me two roundtrip flights (Bermuda and Jamaica, here I come!).

When you travel (especially alone), you can’t help but notice the people around you. And a lot of them are real douchebags. Here are the top five fine human specimens that infiltrate our air travel system.

1. People who try to board the airplane before their zone is called.
I’m sorry, are you deaf? No. You’re not. I just saw you talking and it wasn’t in sign language. Did you fail math? Do you not know what order numbers go in? Because they just called zone 2 and you’re up there with your zone 4 boarding pass trying to do what? Sweet talk and/or slip past the Delta agent? No chance in hell. And now you’ve held up the line.

As for people who aggressively cut the line to board: You can go F yourself, too. I’m an asshole and I don’t even do that. We’re all going to get on the plane. Take a chill pill.

2. People who yell-talk on the plane like they’re at an effing concert, ESPECIALLY during take-off when it’s extra loud.
Look, I know you’re SO excited about getting to your destination and seeing what the local Applebee’s has to offer, but can you save that story about Bubba Jr.’s tee-ball game or how kickass Nickelback’s new album is until the volume in the cabin is at a mild roar…or better yet, until we land? You are LITERALLY screaming. Yesterday on my flight, there were some people so loud, other passengers were actually shushing them.

And when it’s a whole GROUP traveling together and yelling over seats? Ohmygod, I can’t even.

3. People with no seat respect.
Ok, I get that you want to lean back. I’m an airplane sleeper myself. But even I won’t shoot my seat all the way back when I’m forced to fly AirTran coach because there are exactly 7 centimeters between the seats and you’re likely to give someone a black eye when you make a belligerent move like that. The least you can do is ease back slowly.

Also, people who don’t respect the seat IN FRONT OF them. Yesterday, I felt my seat bouncing (while I was trying to sleep) and realized the teenage girls behind me were playing an aggressive card game on their tray tables. I peered through the seats and made a lighthearted comment, and when they didn’t ease up ONE BIT (and the lady next to me murmured about it under her breath), I whipped around and asked them to please take it down a notch. The chick raised her eyebrows at me and I promptly eyed her up and down and gave her a look that said, “I will Mean Girl you so hard; I don’t care if we’re 20,000 feet in the air.”

They put the cards away.

4. People with too much body…or body odor.
I do sympathize with larger folks and air travel (my former offensive lineman brother is 6’7, 300 lbs), but if your body is spilling into my seat and I’m LITERALLY pinned under your arm fat, you should be flying business class or buying two seats.

If you have halitosis, you need to find an alternate form of transportation because exposing people to that rottenness in such close quarters is just plain wrong.

5. The crying baby.Look, I know you’re like, 7 months old and dealing with a lot of shit like being sleepy/hungry, teething, pooping your pants, not being able to “express yourself,” and/or having parents that fall into any of the above categories, but please, for the love of God, shut the f*ck up.Happy travels this summer, everyone!

Comments

How awful!! I hope you take that vacation to Bermuda recover from all of that.

These are amazing descriptions, especially 1 and 2. I apparently angered the travel gods and once was stuck in between a group of 10 teenage mormon kids who had just been on a mission trip to haiti and they were disappointed that it wasn’t a more luxurious vacation..no words

Thankfully it would appear I’m in good company with my travel woes! Hope you trip home is much less eventful!!